By: Jason Kennedy on September 10, 2015
We Are All Visual Ethnographers Now Laying in my bed as try to chase sleep, I often times find myself picking up my favorite digital device and taking a stroll through the halls of social media. As a pastor, this can be a dangerous walk. When I go to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any of…
By: Phillip Struckmeyer on September 10, 2015
Drawing Attention William Dyrness in his book, Visual Faith: Art, Theology and Worship in Dialogue, draws attention to the idea that there is a crisis in Christianity and its relationship to the Arts. Dyrness, in this intriguing text, ultimately is calling for a needed renewal. Dyrness writes, “We need a threefold renewal: a new vision for…
By: Mary Pandiani on September 9, 2015
When I taught Western Civilization to 10th graders quite a few years back, I loved talking about the middle ages and cathedrals, especially how stained-glass windows were the most significant medium for peasants/serfs to understand the gospel. The images, beautiful artwork, adorned the dark corridors of the oft-cold churches. Because Latin was a foreign language…
By: Nick Martineau on September 9, 2015
As long as I have lived in Kansas there has been an ongoing Kansas School Board debate about school funding. Like many other States, Kansas never seems to have enough funding and no more wants to raise taxes for education. A few years ago the School Board threatened to defund the theater/arts/music programs in our…
By: Dave Young on September 7, 2015
I think there are some Christians, in the ultra-conservative camp, who have an angst, an unspecified fear, of art. Emotions, after all, aren’t easily constrained, and if art does anything at all, it elicits an emotional response. An experience with something of beauty might feed my desire; desire awakened could arouse my passion—and that can’t…
By: Dawnel Volzke on September 5, 2015
My recent work has taken me into several Christian organizations that are struggling under financial pressures, and are experiencing declining customers or members. Their day-to-day operations aren’t driving successful outcomes. They’ve fallen into what Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, calls “the Doom Loop”[1], or a downward spiral. Hence, these organizations are forced…
By: Brian Yost on September 5, 2015
While reading Jim Collin’s Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t, I found myself placing the material into three district categories; Things I Liked, Things I Found Curious, and Things I Struggled With. Things I Liked Two things that I particularly liked were the Hedgehog Concept and the “Not-To-Do” list.…
By: Aaron Cole on September 5, 2015
How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren was very foundational and somewhat elementary on the subject of reading and good reading skill. The content could be divided into two categories: basic understanding of reading (part one) and the practices of how to be a good reader (part 2). The…
By: Claire Appiah on September 4, 2015
Adler: How to Read a Book Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren are to be credited for showing the activity of quality reading to be an art, a science, and a skill. They have produced an outstanding and thorough work on techniques, levels, and types of reading that has become a classic model for informing…
By: Travis Biglow on September 3, 2015
Good to Great by learning from a Hedgehog! September 3, 15 Many of the concepts in Good to Great and Good to Great and the Social Sectors are many that I am struggling with as a leader. It’s difficult to lead like the books say when you are in the building process and to not…
By: Jon Spellman on September 3, 2015
Self-awareness. Can an organization posses it? Collectively I mean. Or is it something that only individuals within the structures of an organization can have? Is an organization a living, breathing entity made up of components (people), capable of self-awareness? Is there somehow a way to find the collective consciousness of an organization? What about instincts?…
By: Garfield Harvey on September 3, 2015
How To Read A Book’s target audience are those who ‘read’ to gain increased understanding. We are living in a society that relies on acquired information through spoken words and observations. In this technological era, reading the text from a book is no longer a priority. My oldest son is in high school with a…
By: Rose Anding on September 3, 2015
Word by Word We read books! How do we read books? Are we using the correct method? These are some of the questions that most people ask when reading books; which include Professors in various institutions, asking these questions too. Apparently, few have recognized how they should read books. They…
By: Kevin Norwood on September 3, 2015
Every book has margins in it! In, “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, there is a clear reason given for the margins in a book. It is to write in. There is so much more to reading a book than just covering the words on the pages. There…
By: Mary Pandiani on September 3, 2015
When Good to Great came out in 2001, the hype of the book extended all the way to a growing church in Gig Harbor, Washington. Our Executive Pastor who loved all things Patrick Lencioni, Stephen Covey, and John Maxwell decided we, as a staff, needed to read the Jim Collins’ book together. The concepts of…
By: Colleen Batchelder on September 3, 2015
One must demand the right for truth. The reader must demand the right to transform. If we simply read to be entertained or appeased, then our obtainment becomes nothing more than ignorance and indoctrination. Adler makes a stunning declaration regarding this apathetic crisis in our culture. “Many readers, and most particularly those who view current…
By: Aaron Peterson on September 3, 2015
How To Read A Book by Adler and Doren is a fantastic book on the many rules and steps to reading intelligently. Due to the amount of minutiae though, I constantly found myself feeling the same way one does when watching a Ken Burns documentary on the United States Congress. The majority of people would…
By: Jason Kennedy on September 3, 2015
I will be the first to admit that when I saw that I was assigned a book entitled, How to Read a Book, I was a little frustrated. After all, I am a highly skilled and highly educated man who has read plenty of books. Certainly, this would be a waste of time and energy to read…
By: Pablo Morales on September 3, 2015
“How to Read a Book” was first published in 1940. After three decades of unexpected success and two years before I was born, Mortimer Adler published a new edition with the help of Charles Van Doren in order to approach the art of reading in a more holistic way. This approach resulted in a series…
By: Phillip Struckmeyer on September 3, 2015
Good Great Power Good to Great is a fascinating study of how companies who have settled into and exist with a good enough mentality, culture, and results can experience the awakening of becoming great. From a researched based study, author Jim Collins and an extensive team of researchers, assesses, evaluate, and compare twenty-eight companies to learn…
